I Moved The Stars For No One
by UndergroundValentine
Summary: He left her alone. He let her grow up. He let her live her own life and give up on her dreams. And maybe it's time for him to move on. Maybe, just maybe, her daughter will be the one to mend his breaking heart. Please read author's note at the beginning!


Okay. So... Just to clarify things before it gets confusing, this is the newest rewrite of the fiction "I Moved The Stars For No One". The original is posted, the first rewrite is posted though it's not finished (and never will be, hence the reasoning for this rewrite). I hope that you guys can bear with me for being so slow with this. I've got a bunch of other stuff going on right now apart from writing (school, sports, my relationship, my friends, my family, etc etc etc), but I'll make an effort to work on this when I can.

Now then, there're gonna be a few changes. The story will have the same pace as the first rewrite, but it's gonna have more aspects of the original (meaning fatherly issues and figures will no longer be involved, just saying). I do, humbly, request comments, criticism, etc etc. :)

* * *

Silence.

Silence in the Labyrinth.

It wasn't always like this. It wasn't this hot, this dead, this lifeless amongst the walls, trees, and city streets of the Goblin City. The branches of the once-lush and beautiful trees didn't look like charred, ancient and brittle bones, threatening to fall apart if they clattered together too much. The walls stood much higher and they didn't sport holes punched through them like Swiss cheese.

The roads used to be paved, and, now, they're reduced to the effect of broken cobblestone. Uneven and hazardous to the weary traveler. The water used to flow over the fountains in beauty and life, and now it's barely a stain in the bottom of the deepest wells. And whatever is left is murky, muddy and aged. Not even earth gnomes, however desperate they might be, will touch it.

There didn't used to be a putrid stench of dead, shriveled and dried out bodies that could compete with the smell of the Bog (which has thickened and become less of a bog and more of a reeking quicksand). Bodies of grimwalds and tagglers, their skins so dried that they could be used as leather book covers. Their eyes are shriveled plates, bleached white from the sun. They can be used as currency in the market.

The heat, especially, was never this bad. Never so intense, so agonizing that it made the whole Underground seem like a boiling Hell. The sun had never been so large, so bright and intense that it threatened to set fire to the land at any moment. And if that were to happen, no amount of magic would be able to stop it.

But what the folk of the Goblin City and the Labyrinth surrounding it fail to realize is that by merely passing from the Kingdom's barriers into the pasture of traveling land towards the next, their suffering would be over. For each Kingdom's magic and shielding is dependent on the mentality and strength of its ruler. The middle ground pastures are dependent on the overall strength of the rulers of the Underground (meaning it's, often, the most ideal place to be). That, if they were to consider it, should they slip through the slight pin-prick sensation of traveling between shields, they would feel like they are freezing from temperature change.

But they don't. Because the goblins of the Goblin City are, regrettably, not that smart. That, or they're merely naïve; hopeful and, perhaps, confident that their King will come to his senses and understand that he can't keep dwelling on the green-eyed babe who broke his heart some-odd thirty years ago. But it could be just because the goblins aren't that smart.

However, they _are_ smart enough to remember that things used to be lush and beautiful. And they're smart enough to wish for things to go back to those good days. They're smart enough to want. Determined enough to try and, potentially achieve.

But to achieve what, exactly? The peace and prosperity of the Labyrinth? Well, that's not for them to decide. The strength and peace of the land is depended upon the one who governs it. It depends on his or her confidence and strength in their own magic and the bond of their people. Determined and wishful as the goblins might be, they're not the ones capable of returning their land to its glory.

The goblins remember the time of paradise and peace; their King had been in love back then. So in love with that green-eyed babe. And she was fair; fairer than even the most beautiful Fae ladies in neighboring Kingdoms. Human, too, sadly enough. Some wonder if that was the King's downfall, that he fell for a human girl. It was all together possible, but no one seemed to oppose the idea.

They remember when she came to the Labyrinth in search of her baby brother, whom she so passionately wished away and then claimed she never meant it. The goblins knew she meant it… at the time. But they didn't care, then. The babe had come to the Labyrinth and their King was so happy. The Labyrinth had never looked better…

And then she went and said those words. Those words that crushed the King's strong, madly-in-love heart and, in turn, crushed the heart of the Labyrinth, herself. Shattered the will of prosperity and the promise of everlasting paradise. Shattered the screen of happiness that had finally started to settle over the people…

The King had never been the same. Between the moment she'd said the words to the thirty years that had passed. He never really built a grudge against her. His love melted to heartache and longing, but he never reached out for her. Even when she turned of age, not only in his world but also hers. He left her be. He let her grow and give up on her dreams from her childhood. He let her fall in love with the wrong people, make bad decisions and learn, marry a decent man and live her life.

He left her alone.

* * *

**UV: **And what rewrite would this be without my conversations with Jareth?  
**Jareth: **You're seriously doing this... _again_?  
**UV: **Uhm, yes.  
**Jareth: **Good God... What is this, the tenth rewrite?  
**UV: **Hush you, no it's not. Don't make me put you back in the oubliette again.  
**Jareth: *pout***


End file.
